Psychology Assignment 2

In all conditions, we will tell participants that we want them to read a short story from the Miami Herald about a famous social media influencer and his sponsor. Later they will rate their impressions of both parties. While the story itself is similar in many respects, it differs regarding the influencer’s response to an incident caught on video in a Miami gym. There are three conditions. 1) Some participants will read a positive story. 2) Others will read a negative story. 3) Remaining participants will read a neutral (control) story. We want to see if the influencer’s response impacts how participants form impressions about the influencer and – more importantly – his sponsor.

1). For your first experimental study, you will play the role of researcher, and you will collect data from three different participants. There are two phases to this study. In the first phase, you will orally ask participants if they are willing to participate in a research study. In the second phase, participants will complete a multi-part survey. First, they will read a short article from the Miami Herald about the Instagram influencer. Then they provide ratings about the article as well as demographic information. Finally, they will complete a manipulation check question and be debriefed. As you collect data from participants, use the following steps:

A). Your first task is to approach three different participants (not all at the same time!). Preferably, they will be people that you do not know and did not take a psychology research methods class during the Fall 2026 semester or the Spring or Summer semesters of 2026. Please DO NOT complete this study yourself. If possible, use FIU students as participants (no family / friends – You will use those individuals in a replication study later in the semester, and they cannot participate twice). There are 48 students in our class, so with each student collecting data from 3 people, our final sample will be around 140 participants total.

1). Note that there is a “Covid alternative” to data collection if you are unable to collect data yourself. Ask your instructor about that option, but there is a good chance that you will already see some pre-completed “Covid Alternative” documents in Canvas.

2). Even if you use the “Covid Alternative”, read the information below, as it will help you write your future papers. You do not need to mention that you used the Covid Alternative, but you will pretend like you collected participant survey responses yourself.

B). Phase I: Informed Consent

1). Informed Consent:

· Ask the potential participant if he or she is willing to participate in a study for your research methods class. You will get their informed consent verbally. Tell them:

“Hello, I am conducting a study for my research methods class. I was wondering if you would be willing to participate. The study takes about five to ten minutes. There are no risks to participating, and the main benefit is that I can complete my class assignment. Will you participate?”

· An oral Yes or No response is fine. If they say no, thank them and find a different participant. If they say yes, move to the next step ( Phase II – Questionnaire).

C). Phase II: “Questionnaire”

1). General Instructions

· After getting participant’s oral informed consent, randomly give them ONE of the three “Research Study – Florida International University – Fall 2026” documents. These three documents contain our independent variable for the study (An “independent variable” is the variable that researchers control. We have one independent variable with three levels in our study, with each survey representing one of the three levels/conditions for that single independent variable). One third of our research participants will be in the “Negative” condition, one third will be in the “Positive” condition, and one third will be in the “ Neutral” condition (You will read more about these conditions below!).

· Ask participants to follow the instructions at the top of the questionnaire. Tell them that they can go at their own pace and glance at all information on the first page. Make sure they complete all questionnaire parts (though note that they can leave some demographic questions blank in Part V if they do not want to provide those details).

2). Questionnaire

· Part I: Study Instructions

· In this section, all participants read the same instructions about the general purpose of the study and the tasks they will complete. They will read:

Please read over the story from the Miami Herald about Alex Quinn, a social media influencer with 2.2 million followers who is sponsored on Instagram by Fitlife Collective (a fitness apparel and wellness brand).

Several pictures follow the instructions, including a logo for FitLife Collective, a collage of gym photos with a cell phone often present and the Instagram logo, and a Threads link for Alex Quinn. These pictures are identical on all surveys.

· Part I Miami Herald Story

· This is the most important section of the study, as it contains our independent variable (the variable we control). All participants read a short six paragraph story regarding a recent viral video involving Alex Quinn, a social media fitness influencer. Most of the story is identical across all study conditions, including background information about Alex Quinn as a fitness influencer. It also describes his association with FitLife Collective, including their collaboration in an annual charity raffle. You can see the three versions of the story at the end of this document. While most of the story is identical across the three study conditions, they differ in the third paragraph with regard to how Alex Quinn responded to someone mocking a beginner gym user in Miami, FL.

· In the “ Negative” condition, participants read about an incident in which Quinn joined another experienced gym goer in mocking a gym beginner who was unsure how to use the gym equipment (which is contrary to the usually charismatic approach Quinn has as a fitness social media influencer). The altercation is caught on camera and posted online, and Quinn later expresses regret about the incident.

· In the “Positive” condition, participants read about the experienced gym goer also mocking the gym beginner, but in this version Quinn steps in and assists the beginner and encourages her to continue.

· In the “ Control” condition, participants read about the same altercation between the experienced gym goer mocking the beginner, but here it is unclear if Quinn knew the mocking was happening (though viewers criticized him, noting that he should have been more aware).

· Note: All information in the last paragraphs of the story are identical and focus on the sponsor, FitLife Collective. A key idea here is that FitLife Collective has nothing to do with the gym altercation. The question our study addresses is whether the positive story about Quinn might transfer to positive impressions about his sponsor via the Halo Effect (while a negative story might harm them via the Horns Effect).

· Once they finish reading the story, all participants move to Part II on the second page of the survey.

· Part II: Rating of the Social Media Influencer (Alex Quinn)

· I do want to note that items 5 (attractive) and 6 (honest) are not really a component of the Miami Herald story, so they should get middling ratings (3 or 4). This is especially true of “Alex Quinn seems physically attractive”, as there is no picture of him to justify a high or low rating. However, based on the Halo Effect, participants might see him as more attractive and more honest in the positive condition than in the negative condition, even though the story doesn’t really address those traits!

· We will analyze variables in this section (as well as sections III and IV) using a One-Way ANOVA since there are three levels / groups in the single independent variable and these dependent variables are ratio or interval. We will discuss this more for Paper Two later this semester!

· Part III: Ratings of the sponsor (FitLife Collectives)

Like Part II, participants are asked to agree or disagree with several statements in Part III, but this time about the sponsor FitLife Collective. The five Part III statements use the same interval scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree). Statements include: 1. I have a positive impression of FitLife Collective, 2. FitLife Collective seems reputable, 3. If I was looking for fitness apparel, I would consider buying from the FitLife Collective, 4. FitLife Collective seems like a charitable company, 5. FitLife Collective should not sponsor Alex Quinn.

· Data Analysis Note: You could analyze all five statements here, but you only need to focus on one (or one in Part IV described below). This is one of the more interesting sections in our study, as FitLife Collective has nothing to do with the mocking incident, but impressions of the company might be impacted based on their association with Quinn (more positive in the positive condition and more negative in the negative condition). Thus, we want to see if the Halo/Horns effect transfers to the sponsor of a social media influencer!

· Part IV: Charity Raffle

In Part IV, participants can choose how many (if any) tickets they would purchase for the raffle if they could (ranging from 0 tickets to 100). This ratio scale variable (you cannot go below 0 on this scale as less than 0 tickets makes no sense!) gives us a different way of assessing how the influencer behavior impacts ratings beyond just him (in this case, it also impacts a charity – Nicklaus Children’s Hospital – as well as FitLife Collective).

· Part V: Demographic Information

In Part V, participants provide their demographic information. Although most of these items are easy to complete without violating participant’s privacy, let them know they are free to leave blank any questions they do not wish to answer.

· We report the mean and standard deviation (or SD) for age in Question 2 and descriptive statistics for gender and race/ethnicity (for Questions 1 / 3)

· Part VI: Manipulation Check

In Part VI, participants recall how Alex Quinn (the social media influencer) responded to the beginner exerciser: He mocked/made fun of her, He assisted /encouraged her, or He seemed unaware of her. This is a very important question as it is our study manipulation check (to see if participants paid attention to our manipulation).

· Data Analysis Note:

· For Part VI, we will use a chi square (rhymes with “guy square!”!) to see if participants accurately recall how the influencer responded.

· We want participants in the Negative condition to select the option “He mocked/made fun of her”. Participants in the Positive condition should select the option “He assisted /encouraged her”. Participants in the Control condition should select the option “He seemed unaware of her.”

A quick note for you (the researcher): If you look at the bottom of the questionnaire on the first page, you will see the letters N, P, and C. Those relate to the condition for that specific survey. The N stands for Negative, the P stands for Positive, and the C stands for Control. These initials will help YOU quickly know which survey is which, though the initials should be meaningless for participants. No need to mention this in your future papers, but it is a good way to keep track of your surveys.

D). Once participants complete the questionnaire, debrief them regarding the Halo Effect and Social Media Influencer study. That is, tell them about the study conditions and hypothesis. Read the following:

“This study investigates “Halo Effect”, or the tendency to allow one specific trait or our overall impression of a person, company or product to positively influence our judgment of their other related traits. It also looks at the “Reverse Halo Effect” (also called the “Horns Effect”, where one negative action can lead to negative impressions of the person overall. But we are taking this a step further to see if the Halo and Horns effects transfer to another person associated with the original person. In this case, we want to see if the behavior of a social media influencer colors impressions of his sponsor.

In our study, we asked participants to read a story from the Miami Herald about Alex Quinn, a fitness social media influencer who is described as charismatic, motivational and approachable. The story highlights one event that supports that general impression or goes against it. In all conditions, participants read about an event where another person working out at the same gym as Quinn mocked a woman who was a gym beginner. Quinn’ response, however, differed across conditions. In one condition he joined in the mocking behavior (negative condition). In another condition, he failed to notice the mocking behavior (control condition). In our final condition, he responded by stepping in and assistant the beginner and giving her encouragement (positive condition). Participants also read about Quinn’ sponsor “FitLife Collective”. Our goal is to see if Quinn’ response to the mocking behavior impacts impressions of both him and his sponsor.

We have several predictions in this study. First, if participants read a positive story about a social media influencer, then they will more strongly agree that he seems trustworthy, knowledgeable, qualified, physically attractive, honest, and compassionate (but more strongly disagree that he is phony and that they would choose to unfollow him) than if they read a negative about him. The control condition should fall between these extremes. Second, if participants read a positive story about a social media influencer, then they will more strongly agree that that they have a positive impression of his sponsor, that his sponsor is reputable, that they would buy fitness apparel from the sponsor, and that his sponsor is charitable (but more strongly disagree that his sponsor should stop sponsoring him) than if they read a negative story about him. Again, the control condition should fall between these extremes. Finally, if participants read a positive story about a social media influencer, then they will rate themselves as more likely to buy raffle tickets to support his charity than if they read a negative story about him, with those reading a control story falling between these extremes.

Once again, thank you for participating in this study!

**Methods Students: Note that the underlined paragraphs above will be helpful when you write Paper I! In fact, you can use the underlined paragraphs in your first paper if you like (just copy and paste them into your literature review). However, the predictions ARE NOT INCLUDED in your minimum page count. That is, you can copy/paste the predictions, but they do not count in the page minimum!

Feel free to alter the predictions as you see fit (allowed, but not necessarily recommended!)

Also note that we have 14 different dependent measures in this study (excluding variables in the demographic section and manipulation check section), which means that we have 14 different hypotheses, one for each DV. For your Paper Two analysis, you only need to look at two of these dependent variables. Of course, the most important dependent variables involve looking at impressions of the influencer and his sponsor. I suggest one analysis for each “character”. For the influencer, choose your favorite dependent variable from Part II (personally, I like the “Honest” statement. Nothing in the story suggests Quinn is dishonest, yet his honesty might be bolstered in the positive condition but undermined in the negative condition). For the sponsor, any of the statements would be interesting to look at in Part III, as none should be impacted by the influencer’s behavior. Part IV might be interesting to look at as well, as participants might want to buy fewer tickets in the negative condition than in the positive condition. This can show how the “Horns Effect” can impact others well beyond the original actor, leaving the associate in a worse state simply by being associated with a bad actor.

2). Hold onto the completed questionnaires, as you will use them in an upcoming lab. You will enter data into SPSS and analyze it during your lab. Important note: Each student researcher is responsible for collecting data from three participants (one participant for each condition – Negative, Positive and Control). However, we will combine survey data from each student in your lab section, so your final sample will include at least 100 to 140 or so participants. In your papers (especially Paper II), you will use this total set of research participants (at least 100), NOT just the three that you collected yourself. Don’t even discuss “Three participants”, as that is not correct. Discuss ALL participants in your papers

3). One last note: Pay close attention to these instructions! You can use them as the basis for Paper II later this semester when you discuss your methods section. That being said, these instructions are too long for a methods section, and includes information you will need to omit for Paper II. When writing that paper, make sure to only report the important aspects (what you actually did in the study). Write about what you actually did in the study!